Existing techniques indicating the presence of a user include the user manually setting an indicator using a mouse or keyboard, and using an application which may automatically determine the presence of a user. The resulting indicator representing the presence of a user may be displayed on the computer screen. When the computer screen goes blank or enters a locked state, such as when a screen saver is enabled and activated due to computer inactivity, a user is no longer able to set or view his/her presence indicator. One drawback of the foregoing is that in order to set or view the user's presence setting, the user has to activate the computer screen, such as by logging on to the computer.